Sarah Palin is a charismatic persona much like Ronald Reagan. She is articulate an uses words with clever allusions to bring home her ideas just as Ronald Reagan did. “Hockey mom,” “thanks but no thanks” “put the governor’s jet on E-bay” “I fired the cook” conveys that she a government cost cutter and a rugged, self reliant individualist like Reagan.

He also conveyed these ideas to Americans who thought we could go back to the simpler values as depicted in cowboy movies. We are people from the rugged West where men are men and women are women and by God we know the difference. We are not from the Eastern cities with political corruption and loose morals. Our values are the values of the founding fathers and the pioneers. was the inference to be drawn.

She has the simplistic views of the world just as Reagan did who spoke of his ideal as “America is a bright shinning city on a hill.”(Perhaps his most effective allusion the ideal it embodies could mean anything to any one, but probably it is mostly associated with Heaven on Earth.) There is always a right and wrong that can be clearly perceived with no shades of gray. Good and evil are clear to the average person. ( Mr Gorbachev tear this wall down." to prove the USSR was not on the side of evil.) And God is always on our side because we are guided by faith in God. This was his mantra and doesn’t it sound familiar in the words of the McCain-Palin campaign. They both must have the same speech writers.

Reagan was also guided in by his views that free markets will always end in the best possible result for all people. Democracy will always win out when free men vote their conscience. Government should be small and less obtrusive. Taxes should be reduced to support only the basic functions of government which are police work and national defense. Social programs like Social Security and Medicare sap the strength of America and make people weaklings. People should be rugged individualists.

How many pictures did we see of Reagan on his ranch, poetically named Rancho Del Cielo, in cowboy clothes doing ranch chores like chopping wood or riding a quarter horse.

This ranch was purchased for $527000.00 by the Reagan’s on the advice of their tax and financial advisors in 1974 when he was Governor of California. In 1998 it was sold to a conservative group called the Young America’s For Freedom, headquartered outside Washington, for approximately five million. An approximate ten fold increase in value, much of it due to the improvements the government paid for so it could be used as the Western White House. The exact price seems to be a secret but it had been listed by the Reagan’s for 5.95 million with no takers. Pete Wilson tried to have the Federal government buy it as a memorial for five million. Reagan’s more savvy acolytes nixed that as counter to all Reagan stood for and would ruin his public image. While he had the ranch, beside it being an investment and a tax deduction, it always seemed to lose money as a “business” perhaps it was the cost of the real ranch hands who kept the place up before the government took over this expense. It also gave him great copy for his public persona as a rugged cowboy from the West standing on his own two feet without government assistance. Bush Jr. has tried to use the same public relations ploy with his Crawford Ranch without the same success.

The Young America’s Foundation is preserving Reagan's ranch as a living memorial to Ronald Reagan and his ideas and ideals. In the recent past it also sponsored a “Gala and Dinner” in honor of Ann Coulter. Need more be said?

Now we see Sarah Palin depicted as a rugged individualist, frontier type mom. She has five kids, shoots, skins and eats Moose, runs Alaska as a cost cutter and ruthless maverick eliminating pork and corruption. She levied a windfall tax on the oil companies so she could pay every Alaskan an extra $1200 in addition to the $2000 they already get from oil revenues. Who paid for that? We did. The oil companies are geniuses at passing wind fall taxes and other taxes on to the end users: the American People.

Conservative Republicans are supposed to be against raising taxes. They are unless they aren’t paying them and the little guy is.

She got rid of the governor’s jet. Listing it on E-bay was surely a public relations stunt that didn’t work and it was ultimately sold to a private entity for $500,000.00 loss.

Much has been said about the “bridge to nowhere” as being an example of pork barrel spending on an unneeded project. First she was for it, however when a Washington taxpayers group publicized it as a prime example of pork barrel spending and it was about to be killed she changed horses and was against it. The Reaganesque phrase “thanks but not thanks,” made at her acceptance speech was a deception.

More importantly Alaska, while she was governor, received the funds earmarked for the bridge to be used for other “necessary projects” like the road leading up to the “bridge to no where” which has been built. So the bridge itself appears to be on a back burner waiting for a more opportune time. One wonders what the other necessary projects were that the money went for and why they weren’t designated as an ear mark in the first place?

Palin presents herself in the same way as Reagan but as a rugged individualist living in the wilds of Alaska, hunting and eating moose when she actually lives in a suburban city located 35 miles from Anchorage, the largest city in Alaska. It has approximately 350,000 people in its metropolitan area which includes her home town of Wasilla.

If she’s a rugged individualist then all the other suburban housewife’s who take their children to little league and go to a national park for a vacation are also, with or with out lipstick. In any event are hockey moms nobler than little league moms or any other mom who takes her children to after school sports like basketball, track or swimming? Perhaps hockey is a sport more likely to be played in one of the contested states like Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Colorado or Pennsylvania and some clever speech writer made the reference for the undecided women in those states.

In case you are wondering, 98% of Alaska is owned be the Federal Government so the entire state it is close to being a national park and Alaska receives more Federal tax dollars per capita than any other state. So one could argue it is a true welfare state. So much for the myth of rugged individualists who are purer than city folk because they live in a small town.

This rugged individualist theme of one who communes with nature is a recurrent theme in Republican politics. It is an appeal to the more atavistic among us who yearn for a simpler time while actually the world is becoming more complex due to technology, economics and population growth. The U. S. is being globalized. The cowboys didn’t have to deal with nuclear weapons, AIDS, Asian flu, credit bubbles and world poverty to name a few things. This image is good for cutting taxes and benefits for those less rugged or can’t stand on their own two feet like our seniors, disabled and disadvantaged citizens.

Regan didn’t like paying taxes especially since he was in a higher bracket due to his movie and public relations work. Lowering taxes is always a Republican campaign theme like Palin saying she is a cost cutter and thus eliminating the need for taxes. Just like Reagan, Palin is for shifting taxes to some one else to pay. In her case it was those American’s who must buy gasoline to live and work. Reagan had the discredited Trickle Down Theory of economics. If you lowered taxes on the rich they will create more investment capital. By the rich he meant those large corporations and individuals in the top 5% of taxpayers like himself. The benefits of increased investment by the rich would result in more jobs for the workers, who pay the bulk of taxes anyway, which would result in more revenue through withholding from their wages.

Palin is a bright, new, charismatic, articulate woman on the outside but inside she harbors the tired old policies of deregulation against the public interest as we have seen recently in the sub prime crisis and its aftermath, shifting taxes onto the middle class and away from the wealthy, elimination of programs that benefit all Americans by creating a healthy and stable middle class. The middle class is the basic foundation for American society. It pays the taxes, its sons and daughters serve in the military, it consumes the goods and services that make the economy go, and its labor and intellect makes America go. If any class in America should be protected it is the middle class. Palin’s philosophy of government doesn’t do this.

In the coming months, hopefully the fact the empress has no clothes will be revealed in the debates and in the media.

Labels: Sarah Palin

His Campaign Now That He has Made Concessions To The Christian Right.

McCain's campaign was going nowhere until he named Sarah Palin as running mate in the Vice Presidential Slot. Granted that Sarah Palin is not a pig. She is a pretty, telegenic, charismatic and eloquent hockey mom. The question is will she add the lipstick to his tired old campaign as an alleged reformer of her own party?

McCain is seventy two and there are many questions about his mental and physical capacity to be president with all the physical vigor and mental acuity it will require at those times when the buck will stop at his desk for a decision.

Sarah Palin is no Cheney or is she? Well not in terms of experience and she is not likely to be the eminence grise behind the Presidency as Cheney was or is. However what she lacks in experience she makes up for in poise and confidence, but more and more it is turning out that she has pushed McCain’s candidacy further to the right on gun control, pro- life- anti Roe V. Wade issues, tax cuts, energy and Christian Right values. She is certainly not a moderate.

While she talks about alternative energy sources her main focus is on more drilling in the United States and particularly in Alaska. She doesn’t believe Global Warming is man made so green energy is low on her list of priorities. She has the typical conservative ideas on solving the energy crisis i.e. more drilling now some alternative fuels and hopefully some new technology will turn up to make the problem go away.

Sarah Palin is merely the tired Republican right under a young face. She is not a new force for meaningful change but just McCain’s sop to the Christian fundamentalists and the right he needs as his base in this election. Those are the people who rally to her appearances on McCain’s stops where once he could hardly fill a small arena but now he has crowds flocking to see and hear Palin.

They are not Hillary’s women supporters but female fundamentalist Christians. Previously the Republican right was skeptical when McCain said he would appoint judges who would overturn Roe v.Wade. Now they believe him. She has added the lipstick to his campaign. She is new blood but with still the same old tired Republican/Conservative ideas under a bright young face campaigning as a reformer. Her new face is not necessarily political change or reform it is merely a new person harboring the same Republican rightist principles. In the case of Sarah Palin’s new face it covers a heart that is farther to the right and harder than most Republicans.

This not a new thing with the Republican strategists when their policies and ideas fall on their face with the majority of Americans they reach down for an unknown charismatic personality from nowhere and push him or her forward as the answer to all America’s problems. A reformer who will change the party’s ways. Bush was such a person. Yet when he gained office under the most tenuous conditions he brought into office with him the old guard of lobbyists and business managers to run the government under the same old tired policies of limited government, a big military, less business and environmental regulation and fewer taxes for the upper one percent of taxpayers.

John McCain calls himself a”reformer” but he has been the quintessential Washington insider for over twenty five years supporting the Republican agenda during that time. His Wikipedia page lists his net worth as over forty million dollars and his wife, who owns the Budweiser distributorship in Phoenix, is reputed to be worth more than one hundred million dollars.

One wonders how you accumulate forty million dollars on a naval officers pay and a politicians pay.

McCain defines the dividing line between middle class and rich as someone earning five million dollars. That is a person in the top .01 percent of wage earners. Obvious he is so far removed from the average middle class family that he has lost the common touch he may have once had as a naval pilot.

He has voted with Bush the vast majority of the time and some critics say at least ninety percent of the time. Occasionally he would remonstrate at some earmark or administration proposal but nothing serious. His main claim to fame as a “maverick” is the McCain Feingold campaign finance bill which has been ineffective. Republicans still get their money from lobbyists and business. Obama has seemed to break the Democratic mold of support from unions, trial lawyers and liberal celebrities by raising his money on the internet in small individual donations. He may be the first democratically financed president. Dean touched on this means of campaign finance until he was derailed in Iowa in 2004 by a hostile media.

Remember he also voted for all of Bushes ultra conservative federal judge nominees both for the appellate bench and the Supreme Court and he would give us more of the same if elected. So he has no record to run on except the Bush record of the last eight years which he would essentially continue if elected. However espousing the policies of Bush on Iraq and taxes will not get him elected so he has to call himself the candidate for “change” and “reform.”

When this campaign theme is not effective or believable in comes the new face of Sarah Palin who will “reform” Washington. This is almost laughable because as Vice President she has no power and for most of her life she has backed the Republican right.

Who would really run the government in the sad event of a McCain victory? It would be the same lobbyists and business types drawn from the same pool that ran the Bush government and bureaucracy. McCain is too old and Palin is too inexperienced and unsophisticated to do it herself and as said she has no power and will be relegated to the sidelines doing PR work with the many women’s organization whose meetings require an administration speaker.

McCain says he is going to reform health care with the help of private industries meaning the big insurers, that’s funny since they are the reason why forty percent of Americans lack health insurance. These are people the insurance companies don’t want to insure because they are at the bottom of the risk pyramid or lack the funds to buy their expensive plans.

McCain would let Social Security and Medicare die as big business doesn’t like a competing plan that works and holds them up to comparison. Thus Republicans are trying to sabotage Social
Security and Medicare by underfunding while giving massive tax reductions to big business. These two programs comprise the greatest social successes in the last fifty years for America

He would reform education with charter schools instead of the bolstering public education which is the back bone of the country and another Americaan success story. Public School teachers are unionized to protect themselves from meddling politicians who run on reform platforms for changing the schools although they never taught or administered. It is just a cheap shot at the school unions who mainly support democratic candidates.

Also he attacks trial lawyers who support mostly democratic candidates and therefore are not a part of his Republican base.

He would “reign” in the trial lawyers who in many cases are the last resort of Americans to gain a hearing before a judge or jury who are empowered do something about the inequities in the system.

Can McCain use Sarah Palin to put lipstick on his tired pig of a campaign falsely alleging he is for “change” and that he will kick the rascals out that he has worked and voted with for twenty five year years? I think not because he is one of the rascals and Sarah Palin is a sham candidate considering that McCain first wanted Joe Lieberman, then former Governor Rudd of Pa. (a battle ground state) but they were nixed by McCain's campaign operatives because both these men were pro choice. These men would have also made his candidacy appear more centrist . Milt Romney was rejected because he has taken conflicting positions, first pro choice and then pro life so his operatives (think future plumbers) turned to Palin a last minute desperate gamble to put life in his campaign and a sop the fundamentalist Christian right.

Change candidate or reformer? This spin is an out right falsehood.

Labels: McCain

THE TRUE BELIEVER IN FREE MARKETS AND NO REGULATION

Gerald Greenspan: A true believer in free markets was betrayed by his convictions. The sub prime and the related financial crisis, an unlikely event but still possible, was allowed to occur due to leverage, greed and most of all the failure of the Federal Reserve under Chairman Greenspan to use its power to regulate the sub prime market in particular and the mortgage market in general.

Barney Frank(D)MA has said that Congress passed legislation allowing the Federal Reserve to regulate the mortgage industry in the Nineties. However, Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan, a diehard free market advocate, refused to use the regulatory powers of the Fed even to curb fraud in mortgage lending much less to set out guidelines for sub prime lending. The subsequent sub prime mortgage crisis and the spread of this crisis throughout the banking system has nearly brought down the system he was appointed to protect.

Greenspan has answered his critics by saying the role of regulation has been tried before and it doesn’t work. Further he has also stated that he was not fully cognizant on the extent of the bubble until 2007. These statements from a man of the sophistication of Greenspan don't ring true.

Wikipedia discusses the controversy noting as follows:

“On March 17, 2008 Alan Greenspan wrote an article for the Financial Times Economists’ Forum entitled “We will never have a perfect model of risk“, in which he argued: “We will never be able to anticipate all discontinuities in financial markets.” He concluded: “It is important, indeed crucial, that any reforms in, and adjustments to, the structure of markets and regulation not inhibit our most reliable and effective safeguards against cumulative economic failure: market flexibility and open competition.” The article attracted a number of critical responses from forum contributors, which consists of some of the world’s leading economists (including two Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences winners, Edmund Phelps and Joseph Stiglitz), who, finding causation between Greenspan's policies and the discontinuities in financial markets that followed, criticized Greenspan mainly for what many believed to be his unbalanced and immovable ideological suppositions about global capitalism and free competitive markets. For example, one forum contributor, Paul de Grauwe, wrote: “Greenspan’s article is a smokescreen to hide his own responsibility in making the financial crisis possible. Greenspan, who was at the helm of the most important monetary institution in the world, failed to take his responsibility to supervise the financial markets blinded as he, and his colleagues, were by a belief that markets and bankers know better than governments.” Other notable critics included J.Bradford Delong, Alice Rivlin, Richard Werner, Christopher Whalen, Michael Hudson, and Willem Buiter."

On April 6, Greenspan responded to his critics in a follow-up article entitled, “A response to my critics,” in which he rigorously defended his ideology as applied to his conceptual and policy framework, which, among other things, prohibited him from exerting real pressure against the burgeoning housing bubble or, in his words, "leaning against the wind," (which became a catchphrase used during the discussion). Greenspan argued, "My view of the range of dispersion of outcomes has been shaken, but not my judgment that free competitive markets are by far the unrivaled way to organize economies." He concluded: "We have tried regulation ranging from heavy to central planning. None meaningfully worked. Do we wish to retest the evidence?"

The Pundits at Wikipedia further stated as follows follows:

“In the wake of the sub prime mortgage and credit crisis Greenspan admitted that there was a Bubble in the US housing market in 2007 and (forecast) "large double digit declines" in home values larger than most people expect." However, Greenspan also noted, “I really didn't get it until very late in 2005 and 2006.”

Again Greenspan hung himself with his own words:

“In a speech in February 2004, Greenspan suggested that more homeowners should consider taking out Adjustable Rate Mortgages (ARMS) where the interest rate adjusts itself to the current interest in the market. The Fed's own funds rate was at an all-time-low of 1%. A few months after his recommendation, Greenspan began raising interest rates, in a series of rate hikes that would bring the funds rate to 5.25% about two years later. Hence, Greenspan's recommendation came at a time when interest rates bottomed out making it a particularly bad time to take out an ARM. A triggering factor in the 2007 sub prime mortgage financial crisis (was the) many sub prime ARMS that reset at much higher interest rates than what the borrower paid during the first few years of the mortgage.”

And again Greenspan is quoted as saying in an April 2005 speech:

"Innovation has brought about a multitude of new products, such as sub prime loans and niche credit programs for immigrants. Such developments are representative of the market responses that have driven the financial services industry throughout the history of our country … With these advances in technology, lenders have taken advantage of credit-scoring models and other techniques for efficiently extending credit to a broader spectrum of consumers. … Where once more-marginal applicants would simply have been denied credit, lenders are now able to quite efficiently judge the risk posed by individual applicants and to price that risk appropriately. These improvements have led to rapid growth in sub prime mortgage lending; indeed, today sub prime mortgages account for roughly 10 percent of the number of all mortgages
outstanding, up from just 1 or 2 percent in the early 1990s."

^{These positions were followed by the disastrous sub prime market collapse in March of 2007. Where was the invisible hand that moderates markets and prevents things from becoming outright disasters? Was the invisible hand a figment of Adam Smith’s and John Locke’s imaginations? It works under some conditions but the forces in play during the sub prime rise and collapse, namely low global interest rates, securitization of mortgages, investor and lender fraud and an insatiable demand by financial institutions, pension funds and others for these devices whose risk was wrongly assessed by the rating firms gave Wall Street the opening to manipulate and overwhelm the skeptics and opposing market forces.}

^{This is a prime example and a refutation of Greenspan's and others belief that a free market will always right itself. Now belatedly the Federal government is bailing out mortgage lenders, investment banks and even fraudulent borrowers and lenders with taxpayer’s money and lo and behold the Fed has begun to regulate the mortgage industry.}

^{Free markets don’t always work as in the present instance where it was manipulated by Wall Street. Therefore and in some cases the government must step in and regulate for the good of all. The great question is when to regulate and how much to regulate not no regulation at all. That’s what we pay bureaucrats like Mr. Greenspan to know and his blind advocacy of free markets in this case only begot license and fraud in the market to the detriment of the American people.}

^{The lesson Wall Street will take away from this catastrophe is: We Can Be as Profligate And In Many Cases Fraudulent As Possible And If It Threatens The Financial System the United States Government Will Bail Us Out.}

Labels: ALAN GREENSPAN

On July 31, 2008 Judge Bates of the Federal District Court found that former Presidential Counselor Harriet Miers and present Chief Of Staff Josh Bolton must appear before the House Judiciary Committee and answer questions and produce documents about the politicalization of the Justice Department, the firing of the nine U.S. Attorneys and presumably who Monica Goodling, Justice Department liaison with the White House, was liaising with when she was vetting Assistant U.S. attorneys and other people at Justice along political, religious and sexual orientation lines. Obviously she was too young and too ignorant to commit the gross injustices and crimes she did without the direction of a more devious and corrupt mentor.

Judge Bates found that there is no blanket Presidential Executive Privilege Immunity and the House Judiciary Committee could subpoena White House personnel for questioning and production of documents on their activities while in office. Indeed there are no laws justifying the conduct of these White House employees. They can appear and either invoke the Fifth Amendment Privilege against self incrimination or possibly assert the Presidential Privilege again. However Judge Bates has said this objection only applies in extreme cases as in national security and not in the present case.

Karl Rove also failed to appear and give testimony saying he was protected by Presidential Privilege. The Judiciary Committee has voted to request a contempt citation for him. Currently the request is waiting for Nancy Pelosi to call a full vote by the House on a contempt citation as was done in the Miers and Fielding cases. Presumably after Judge Bates’s decision she will if Rove doesn’t appear and testify.

Attorney General Mukasky who was appointed and approved by Congress on the promise that he would clean up the Justice Department refused to criminally enforce the Miers and Fielding citation. Thus the matter went to Federal District Court on civil contempt grounds. Rove raised the same privilege on the issue of the politicization of the Justice Department and other matters and failed to appear as required on the same basis as Miers and Bolton.

Miers and Bolton may appeal the judge’s decision. However if they do, and the appellate court rules against them after the Bush administration has left office they will not be in a position to seek a presidential pardon.

However Bush may pardon them anyway for any crimes they may have committed while in office when he is about to leave office and before a ruling. This would be politically explosive and whether he will do this remains to be seen. It could be seen as a gross disregard and contempt for the rule of law as seen in the Watergate case.

It would also be an admission of wrongdoing by his White House and it could be grounds for the appointment of a special prosecutor by who ever is the new attorney general to delve into Bush's his own conduct in the controversy.

Chairman Conyer's has already sent letters to the lawyers for Rove, Miers and Bolton for compliance with the court's order.*

The ball is in Miers, Bolton and Rove's court as to whether they will appear and testify or appeal.

ORDER

Upon consideration of [16] defendants’ motion to dismiss and [14] plaintiff’s motion for partial summary judgment, the oppositions and replies thereto, the various amicus briefs filed in this matter, the entire record herein, the hearing on June 23, 2008, and for the reasons identified in the Memorandum Opinion issued on this date, it is hereby

1. ORDERED that defendants’ [16] motion to dismiss is DENIED; it is further

2. ORDERED that plaintiff’s [14] motion for partial summary judgment is GRANTED IN PART; it is further

3. DECLARED that Harriet Miers is not immune from compelled congressional process; she is legally required to testify pursuant to a duly issued congressional subpoena from plaintiff; and Ms. Miers may invoke executive privilege in response to specific questions as appropriate; it is further

4. ORDERED that Joshua Bolten and Ms. Miers shall produce all non-privileged documents requested by the applicable subpoenas and shall provide to plaintiff a specific description of any documents withheld from production on the basis of
executive privilege consistent with the terms of the Memorandum Opinion issued on this date; and it is further

5. ORDERED that the parties shall appear at a status call in this matter at 9:15 a.m.on August 27, 2008.

SO ORDERED.

/s/
JOHN D. BATES
UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE
Date: July 31, 2008

Labels: Rove immunity court decision on miers and Bolton

Karl Rove Deliberately Failed To Appear Before A House Judiciary Subcommittee On July 10, 2008 After Being Supboened To Appear. The Ball Is Now In Chairman John Conyers' Court To Request A Criminal Contempt Of Congress Citation And For Enforcement by The Bush Justice Department. Enforcement By Attorney General Mukasky Is Unlikely To Happen Since He has Already Refused To Enforce Similar Citations Against Harriet Miers And Fred Fielding Alleging That The Parties Had Claimed Executive Privilege And That Therefore No Crime Had Been Committed. Rove Is Refusing To Appear On Similar Grounds. See:

Labels: Karl Rove

HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS AND PRODUCERS STILL TURN THEIR BACKS ON TRUMBO FILM AND THE ISSUES SURROUNDING THE BLACKLIST.

This film although raising issues central to our democracy seems to have been produced on a shoe string, despite the appearance of many prominent actors, probable at their own expense, to read Dalton Trumbo’s letters and words.

The subject of course is the blacklist and how it was used to destroy the Hollywood Ten by denying them the right to work. Trumbo blamed the studios and producers for not standing up to the House Un-American Activities Committee by not blacklisting those who refused to declare whether they had ever belonged to the Communist Party and name others whom they were aware of being members.

Trumbo, ever the idealist and child of the Great Depression, had been a member of the Communist Party USA in 1943 when Russia was an American ally in the war against the fascist powers in Europe.

In 1947 Trumbo refused to answer questions by raising the First Amendment Freedom Of Speech clause as protecting him from disclosing his political ideas and beliefs. He also refused to take the Fifth Amendment Right Against Self Incrimination on the grounds he had committed no crime.

Of course the Smith Act, passed in 1940, made it a crime to advocate the violent overthrow of the government. This Act was passed for the criminal prosecution of Communist Party members. So Trumbo was between a rock and a hard place. If he testified he was guilty of the Smith Act and if he didn’t he was guilty of Contempt of Congress. In his case he was convicted of contempt and spent eleven months in prison.

The sad part was that he was unemployable because of the blacklist. The picture depicts the consequences of the blacklist on Trumbo, his wife and children and also the others who were blacklisted.

Ironically J. Parnell Thomas the chairman of HUAC at the time was convicted of fraud and served time in the same prison as some of the Hollywood Ten.

Joan Allen, Brian Dennehy, Michael Douglas, Paul Giamatti, Nathan Lane, Liam Neeson, David Strathairn, Josh Lucas and Donald Sutherland appear in the picture and read Trumbo’s eloquent letters and writings expressing his feeling about the matter.

One of the most salient parts of the movie is a scene from Spartacus which was based on Trumbo’s script. The Roman general tells the conquered slaves if they will identify Spartacus they would not be crucified. Where upon each of the slaves stands and says he is Spartacus.

The Smith Act is still on the books and has never been declared unconstitutional so lest you think the issues raised in this film are in the past the problem is still with us. Thus a man’s ideas as opposed to his acts can still make him a criminal.

This picture could have had wider appeal and had a wider release if it had better financing and marketing. It seems the powers that be in Hollywood would prefer this low budget documentary to briefly flower and die on the art house circuit and then go away as it is a testament to the Studio’s and producer’s failure to stand up and be counted when the chips were down. This is occurring when millions see fantasy CGI action pictures while a film addressing real abuses of power by the government is seen by a few thousand.

All and all it is a film worth seeing because just as Trumbo and hundreds of others lost their freedom and financial well being in the Forties and Fifties it can happen again and probably is right now under the Bush Justice Department. This is particularly true when you consider some of the things that have been done under the Patriot Act and the way the Bush Justice Department has used the Rico Law on perceived political enemies.

Labels: Trumbo Film

Scott McClellan Voluntarily Appeared Before House Judiciary Committee And Testified About The Valerie Plame Leak. Doesn’t Think Bush Was Involved, Cheney He Doesn’t Know If Involved. Basically It Was A Book Promotion.

On Friday, June 20, 2008 Scott McClellan appeared before the House Judiciary Committee voluntarily and testified under oath as to his knowledge about the leak of C.I.A. agent Valerie Plame’s name to the press. He testified he didn’t believe President Bush either knew or was involved in the leak. As to Vice President Cheney’s role he didn’t know the extent if any. He referred to Patrick Fitzgerald’s statement that the conduct of Scooter Libbey , Cheney’s aide, cast a cloud over the Vice President’s office. Fitzgerald was the prosecutor in the Libbey case.

Libbey was convicted of obstruction of justice and lying to the FBI but not for the disclosure of Plame’s identity to the press.

McClellan testified that the White House and the Vice President have not been forthright in disclosing the details and motivation for the Plame disclosure.

While concurring with the validity of the House Judiciary Committees investigation into the firing of the U.S. Attorneys and the Plame leak he had nothing of a substantive nature to add to the investigation

Basically he seems to have been given an opportunity to publicize his book.

Labels: Scott McClellan

In former presidential spokesperson Scott McClellan’s recent book, What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception he discusses the Valerie Plame affair, over which Scooter Libbey was convicted of one count of obstruction, two counts of perjury and one count of lying to the FBI about how he learned Plame’s identity and whom he told. Now Chairman Conyers has invited McClellan to testify under oath before the House Judiciary Committee. In a press release Representative Conyers said “In his book, Mr. McClellan suggests that senior White House officials may have obstructed justice and engaged in a cover-up regarding the Valerie Plame leak. This alleged activity could well extend beyond the scope of the offenses for which Scooter Libby has been convicted and deserves further attention.”

Representative Conyers further said "I find Mr. McClellan's revelations about attempts to cover-up the Valerie Plame leak extremely troubling. Particularly disturbing is McClellan's assertion that he was specifically directed by Andy Card to 'vouch' for Scooter Libby after the investigation had begun, which, if true, could amount to obstruction of justice beyond that for which Mr. Libby has already been convicted.”

McClellan may have made a mistake in trying to front run the Bush Administration’s final days with a tell all book criticizing the administrations management of the news.

The letter inviting McClellan to testify on June 20^th 2008 is usually a precursor to a subpoena if the “invitee” fails to agree to appear and testify.

After refusing to appear voluntarily, Karl Rove has been subpoenaed to testify before the House Judiciary Committee regarding the politicization of the Department Of